Canberra-born sprinter Isis Holt says she can’t be disappointed with another Paralympic silver medal after smashing her previous best T35 100 metre time.
The 20-year-old went into the Tokyo final as the raging favourite after posting the best heat time on Friday morning, just short of her world record 13.43 seconds.
But history repeated itself with China’s Rio champion Zhou Xia causing another upset after getting off to blistering start.
British sprinter Maria Lyle, who won the 2019 world title, took bronze as she also did in Rio.
Zhou crossed in a world record time of 13.00 seconds, with Holt also eclipsing her previous best to stop the clock at 13.13 seconds.
Melbourne-raised Holt said she couldn’t have done any more.
“I wasn’t expecting a time like that,” she told Channel Seven.
“It would have been awesome to win that final but that PB for me is insane – that’s a world record and I couldn’t be happier.”
Holt stunned Australia when she became a world record holder at 14 but decided after the 2018 Commonwealth Games to take some time away from the sport.
Holt, who has cerebral palsy, said that towards the end of year 12 in 2019 she watched back some of her races and “got the bug for it again”.
Studying psychology at university, Holt transferred her studies to Queensland to train under Paul Pearce, who also coaches Riley Day, who blitzed her 200 metres personal best in Tokyo last month.
Holt will contest the 200 metres on Sunday where she will again look to topple Zhou for Paralympic gold.
AAP
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